


Terrible Life Choices

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alive Carla Yeager, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Bullying, Character's Name Spelled as Jaeger, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Grisha Yeager's Bad Parenting, Levi has scars, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Swearing, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 00:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18377573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's the first week of school, and the world is already trying to kill Eren. With all of these obstacles being randomly thrown his way, he's definitely going to need some help surviving his junior year.





	1. It's Only Wednesday

His eyes squinted painfully at the red-ink covered paper, the teen hoping that if he stared long enough, the grade would somehow magically change to at least a passing one instead of the embarrassing F he was currently sporting. After several long minutes of nothing happening, he let out an exasperated huff, his eyes now sore and his arm tired from holding out the paper in front of him for so long. Eren finally was able to look elsewhere, completely surprised to see his entire friend group had been sitting around him, staring. 

"What's going on?" He blinked, spotting everyone with their own sandwich in hand (besides his friend, Sasha, who was trying to stuff two into her mouth).

"It's lunchtime, idiot. We're eating food." Jean leaned over and flicked his forehead, Eren quickly swatting at his hand.

  "I can see that, horse face. Why didn't anyone say anything?" He flicked Jean off, earning a middle finger back at him.

"We did." Armin stared. "But you wouldn't respond to any of us so we decided to just let you grieve until you snapped out of it." He shrugged taking a bite out of his sandwich.

Eren rolled his eyes. "You could at least pretend to be a little sympathetic, Armin."

"Tell me this, Eren," He said after swallowing and fixing his glasses that began to slide off his nose. "did you actually read the summer assignments?"

"No, but-"

"Did you attempt to read some sort of summary of the stories online?" 

"N-"

"Did you think to ask me or anyone else ANYTHING before taking the quiz?"

"NO! Okay? I didn't"

"Then I don't feel bad for you." He took another bite out of his sandwich, a look of pure apathy on his pale features. Armin was the smartest out of his friend group, and quite possibly the whole school. He also was SUPPOSED to be Eren's best friend. How dare he not be on his side for this?!

"Well, I don't want to hear it, Armin. You probably already read that shit when you were in kindergarten." He crossed his arms, a pinched expression crawling onto his face.

"You're right, Eren, he did. We all did!" Connie butted in, mouth filled with ham and cheese as he spoke, crumbs falling out, landing on his already stained t-shirt.

"What are you-"

"IT WAS THE GRIMM'S TALES! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO READ FUCKING FAIRY TALES!" Jean threw down his sandwich onto the table, obviously tired of this conversation. 

Eren's face began to burn red. Was this quiz really on a bunch of fairy tales? He guessed he was so nervous that he didn't even read the questions properly. Looking down at his paper, he noticed that the first question did, in fact, involve Cinderella. Groaning loudly, Eren buried his face into his hands, suddenly feeling like he needed to cry.

  A hand suddenly gripped his shoulder. He didn't have to look to know it was Mikasa. Of course, she would be the only one to feel even an ounce of sympathy for him. She's been like that ever since he's known her, and he's known her for a VERY long time. "Don't be sad, Eren. Maybe you can somehow convince Ms. Rico to let you retake the quiz?"

"Are you crazy, Mika?!" He shouted from behind his hands. "Ms. Rico is a soulless bitch who hates my guts!"

"Though I agree with you that she is indeed soulless," Armin interjected. "how could she possibly hate you? It's literally the first week of school and you've never had his class. She doesn't even know you."

But that's where smarty pants Armin was wrong. Ms. Rico knew him very well. When Eren was younger, Ms. Rico lived across the street from him. She herself was in high school and Eren used to annoy her mercilessly. His dumb, elaborate pranks actually caused many MANY problems for her and her family. Eventually, they had to move away because of the... incident. There's no way he was going to pass this year! His past sins have finally caught up to him in the form of an angry failed writer turned English teacher who happened to hold a grudge against him!

"I don't know, man. His grade is even worse than mine, and that's saying something. Look! You even misspelled your last name!" Connie shouted, laughing annoyingly as he did. This caused Sasha to finally look over from her meal, eyebrow cocked. 

"What are you talking about, Connie?" She asked in between bites.

"He put a 'J' in the front instead of a 'Y'! How oblivious do you have to be!" He slapped the table, causing Sasha's juice box to bounce a little. 

"Because you spell it with a 'J', dumbass. It's german." Eren replied, hands now retreated from his features and glaring at his buzz-cut shaved friend. It didn't help his mood that he somehow got a lower grade than Connie. Connie was a fucking idiot. He practically enrolls himself into summer school only two months into the year. It's a miracle the guy has made it this far in his high school career. And here Eren was, with a worse grade than the king of stupid. 

"Well, what do we have here? Is little Eren failing?" A large hand appeared seemingly out of thin air and grabbed Eren's paper from the table. He turned around to see none other than Reiner, holding the red stained page in front of him. "Man, I knew you were dumb, but I didn't imagine you were THIS stupid." 

"Give that back, asshole!" He made a point to stand, but Reiner's little minion, Bert, shoved him back down into his chair. 

Reiner and Bert were seniors, and they've both been terrorizing Eren since he was a freshman.  It wasn't fair since they were both so much bigger than him, and not to mention Reiner's obvious steroid usage. Even though he never stood a chance against the two huge football players, Eren would always try to fight back, the main reason why he always ended up in detention.

"Y'know they have special ed classes here, right? I would go get switched before it's too late, Jeager." Reiner chuckled. His hand released the page, allowing it to slowly float down and land on Eren's lap. Then, Bert picked up Sasha's juice box and began to pour the contents on top of his head. His friends sat there, wide-eyed and unmoving as the two bullies high-fived and walked away.

It was silent for a moment as Eren sat there, fuming in his seat. His left eye twitched while his fist clenched and unclenched itself.

"W-Well, at least you have PE next, right?" Sasha stuttered, chuckling nervously to herself as she rubbed the back of her head. 

Eren quickly stood up, swiftly turning the way those two douchebags had walked off to, only to be stopped by a hand being wrapped around his wrist, pulling him back to his seat. 

"No, Eren." Mikasa began. "You know that's only going to end in a black eye and detention."

Eren opened his mouth to protest but was silenced by Armin's hand signaling for him to stop.

"She's right, Eren. It's the first week of school, so let's focus on one issue at a time, that being getting your English grade up." He sighed before rubbing his temple like Eren was giving him a headache. 

* * *

PE was a good and bad thing for Eren. It was good because he had the ability to change out of his wet and sticky clothes, granting his nose a break from the pineapple juice Sasha was drinking. However, the bad outweighed the worse since the reason he was covered in said juice also enrolled in that class. 

The class had only been going on for fifteen minutes, and Reiner had already shoved Eren into the lockers, pushed him over in the middle of stretching, and tripped him in the middle of running laps. His uniform was now covered in dirt, and his knees were scrapped. He just knew that the 'What have you been doing on your knees?' jokes were going to be coming soon, and the thought of it had quickly made him gone from pissed to ultra-pissed. 

He tried to listen to Armin and Mikasa. He really did. But this was absolutely infuriating! He and his friends had had to go through Reiner's torture for years, and he never had any repercussions for it! He would just continue to push and push Eren until he spilled over the edge, and the teachers only ever saw Eren defending himself, which looked a lot like Eren picking a fight from their point of view. 

And what do you know? The same thing that has been happening for the past two years is happening again.

Eren was just minding his own business, casually sipping quietly from the water fountain, not hurting anybody. A gigantic hand, however, decided to descend from the heavens and push Eren's head so hard that his face slammed onto the bottom of the metal fountain. Now, not only was his face incredibly wet, his nose now ached and no doubt was there going to be a bruise there.

"Oops. Didn't see you there, Jeager." Reiner's ugly chuckle sounded in his ears, causing Eren's lips to turn into a snarl. His hands became fist as he angrily punched the fountain. Reiner only continued to laugh at his frustration.

"That's it you fucking asshole! If you wanna fight, then let's go!" Eren stood up as tall as he could, but he still wasn't even remotely close to Reiner's height. A part of him knew that he never stood a chance against the O-Lineman, but the other part of him, the part that admittedly had anger issues, felt as if he could destroy Reiner with just his aura alone. 

Reiner said nothing, only crossing his arms and flashing an annoying smirk at the junior. Eren's blood began to boil at the lack of an answer as if Renier was saying that Eren wasn't even worth his time. "Dude, you're in the way. Y'know that there are other people who are thirsty out here?"

Eren growled before shoving Reiner to the ground, his hair still dripping cold water into his eyes. Out of pure spite, Eren spat on Reiner's face, fully prepared to get his ass handed to him for doing such an act. Reiner, however, didn't move, even though he was obviously mad. Eren cocked his head a bit in confusion. Why wasn't he currently getting the shit beat out of him?

"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! What's going on around here?!" A voice suddenly cut in. Eren turned to see Coach Oruo, clipboard resting on his hip which was covered in way too short shorts. Eren gulped. This was the head football coach, and most importantly one of the many kiss-ass adults Reiner had following him around. Eren was once again fucked.

"Eren attacked Renier for no reason. I saw the whole thing, sir." Wait, since when was Bert here? Coach Oruo looked in between the two teens, eyes continuously looking back and forth at the grounded senior and Eren. 

After a long moment, Coach Oruo sighed, bringing his hand up to pinch his eyebrows in frustration. "Why am I not surprised?"

"N-No, sir! You don't-" He held his hand up, silencing Eren's poorly crafted excuse. 

"You know it's only Wednesday, right? It's the first week of school and you're already causing trouble, damn it."

"S-Sir."

Another sigh escaped the coach. "Sorry, kid, but looks like you've earned yourself your first detention on the school year."

 


	2. Probably Fought a Bear

Stomping into the art room (or after school detention room) was an extremely common occurrence for Eren Jaeger. The majority of his high school memories seem to stem from this classroom, as this just so happen to be the place that was the most... 'eventful'. It's gotten to the point where he couldn't tell if the random drops of red that scattered the floor was from clumsy students who weren't good at cleaning up spilled paint or spilled blood from the countless fistfights Eren had witness go on in this particular room. 

It was sad, really. Considering the number of projects and supplies that have been ruined by a room filled with tired teen's with anger problems, you'd think that the art teacher would be begging the principal, Mr. Erwin Smith, to relocate where detention was held and get maybe a couch to watch the kid's and not him. Unfortunately, the art teacher never cared all that much and was usually passed out while detention was going on. 

There has been a rumor going around even before Eren came to this school that Mr. Pyxis (the art teacher and detention manager) isn't even certified to teach at all. According to past students, Mr. Pyxis was just one of the janitors that drunkenly walked into a classroom one day and pretended to be the teacher. The previous principal was so oblivious that she didn't even notice and actually had the real art teacher arrested for trespassing on campus.  Eren wasn't sure if he believed all that, but knowing Mr. Pyxis, he wouldn't be completely surprised.

After stomping into the classroom and throwing his bag down, Eren plopped into his usual seat in the front and began to scan the room. Now, Eren wasn't expecting any other students in here, but he was at least expecting the usual passed out drunk to be seated behind his desk. Instead, he was greeted with an empty chair that was neatly pushed under the large table. Since Eren was now looking at it, the desk itself was suspiciously clean. Usually, the wooden table was littered with half-drunken water bottles (filled with vodka, of course), ungraded drawings and paintings chaotically stacked on one another, and other miscellaneous items and supplies strewn around uncaringly.

Now, however, the desk seemed to shine like it was coated with fresh polish. A little cup that held pencils and pens was nicely placed toward the corner and a closed notebook laid in the middle. It was almost creepy how symmetrical the entire table looked as if someone came in with a ruler and measured where each item should be perfectly placed in order to look like a Stock Photo.

"Oh, I was wondering who left the door open." A deep voice startled Eren out of his staring. His eyes panned over to see a man standing by the door frame. Eren has never seen this man before but guessed it most of been a new teacher based on his attire, since his shockingly small height was not helping his guess. The man wore a light blue button down shirt that didn't possess a single wrinkle and the sleeves were neatly rolled up to his elbows. A skinny black tie hung from around his neck and matched his equally black slacks that clung to his legs. 

Eren had to hold back a gasp when he finally looked up at the man's face. His pale features were riddled with scars on his left side. The most prominent one was a long strip of pink flesh that started from just above his eyebrow, crossed over his clouded eye, slashed over his lip, and ended under his chin. Other smaller but just as deep scars mainly gathered around his cheek area, making it look like the poor man had an unfortunate run-in with a tiger or something. And if Eren didn't feel bad enough for this man, while watching him close the door, he couldn't help but notice he was missing a few digits on his left hand. 

"I was told that I was going to be having my first detention brat sitting with me today. Apparently, I'm supposed to get used to seeing your face, since you like spending your time here and all." The man calmly walked toward his desk, pulling out the chair and taking a seat. Resting his chin onto his right hand, he gave Eren a silent look over, his one functioning grey eye lazily glossing over the teen. After a moment, he brought his left hand and scratched the back of his which was unsurprisingly shaved in a perfect raven undercut.

After what felt like an eternity of awkward silence, Eren finally spoke up. "Um... Where's Mr. Pyxis?" His voice sounded shaky, but he couldn't help. He didn't want to sound rude but this guy was definitely freaking him out. 

"Got fired." He answered nonchalantly. Usually, teachers are very nervous when talking about the termination of other colleagues and mostly gloss over the subject if past experiences told him anything. But not this guy, apparently. This guy just threw it out like it was nothing.

"O-Oh..." Eren gulped as the man's piercing gaze continued to dig into his skin. "I'm Eren, by the way."

"Yeah, I know. Erwin gave me the details." His monotone voice filled the room, slowly making Eren more and more uncomfortable. "Mr. Ackerman."

Mr. Ackerman? Oh! His name was Mr. Ackerman! 

"Ackerman? That's my friend's last name too." Eren gave a small chuckle, not that anything was funny but just out of nervous habit. 

"Hmm." Mr. Ackerman's bored expression never changed. If Eren didn't see him up and walking around earlier, he would've sworn he was a statue one of the art students built. "So, tell me, Eren. How does one get detention on the fucking first week of school?"

The crude language came as a shock. Were teachers allowed to talk to students like that? His voice didn't harbor any malice, but still. It made Eren uneasy.

"I-It's a long story." In reality, it wasn't. He got caught in a scuffle and was the only one punished. It happens to him all the time. He just didn't feel like explaining it to the man.

"I assume the big bruise on your nose has something to do with it?" 

Eren's face turned red. Shit, he forgot that was there. He gave a timid nod before looking away from the scarred teacher. It was quiet again and the only sound was the annoying ticking of the broken clock that hung on the wall. It was missing a hand so Eren wasn't entirely sure why it was there. Mr. Ackerman probably just hadn't gotten around to throwing it out yet along with the rest of Mr. Pyxis's junk. 

A sigh finally sounded from the teacher, spooking Eren out of his thoughts. "Enlighten me, kid. What do you brats usual do while stuck in detention?"

Eren cocked an eyebrow. "Well...nothing really. Mr. Pyxis was always asleep so we kinda did whatever we wanted until Mr. Smith told us we could go home."

Another sigh emerged. "Well, don't you have some homework or something? I don't like you just fucking sitting there."

"Not really."

Mr. Ackerman buried his face into his hands as he groaned. "God fucking damn it."

* * *

 

This had to be the worse start of a school year ever. First, he was failing English, which was going to be hard to bring up since Ms. Rico was bound to make his life a living hell. Second, Reiner and Bert were starting a tad bit early with their bullying schedule than usual, so that was going to be difficult. And finally, his new detention manager (which he assumed he was going to see quite often if stuff like today's events continued) was a scary art teacher covered in scars and was missing two of his fucking fingers. If Mr. Ackerman's personality could tell anything, Eren could only assume he lost those fingers fighting a bear who looked at him the wrong way. 

Opening the door to his house, Eren was greeted with the unusual scent of something delicious being made in the kitchen. Eren's feet immediately brought him to the source of the smell, mouth already beginning to water. The image of his mother standing there, stirring a pot of stew startled him, but what else did he expect, honestly?

"You're home early." He walked over to the table and sat his bag down. 

His mother turned to him, her golden eyes widened a bit in surprise. Her face softened when she noticed it was only her son who had finally returned from school. "And you're late. Mary took the rest of my shift since I covered for her last week. Thought it would be nice to cook something for once instead of getting fast food."

Eren shuffled his feet. "Is Dad home?" He questioned softly.

With a small smile on her face, Carla continued to stir her pot. "Of course not, sweetie. He never is."

Letting go of the breath he didn't realize he was holding, Eren picked up his book bag and trudge his way upstairs toward his room.

Eren's parents were rarely ever home. His father was one of the head surgeons at the local hospital and was always busy, which Eren didn't mind so much. Grisha was an extremely stressed out man, something he would let out on his family whenever he WAS home. No, he never hit Eren or anything like that. But he would definitely yell and throw insults his way whenever the smallest thing went wrong. So many times has he returned home just to fuss Eren over the state of the house or how he kept receiving phone calls from school. He would understand if it was parental scolding, trying to make him a better person, but Eren was pretty sure that you're not supposed to call your child names such as 'useless' and 'stupid' during that process.

His mother was an entirely different story. Eren wasn't entirely sure what exactly it was that his mother did. All he knew was that she worked both days and nights and there weren't many people staffed. She tried to be a good mom, Eren could tell. But she was also mainly absent from his life and never really had any advice or anything to help him get through it. She was just kind of there. It was like she was a person who would randomly pop in to check if he was still alive or not and that was it. It was all just so odd to him. No one else's family acted like this as far as he was concerned. Even Armin, whose parents had died, had a supportive adult role model in his life in the form of his Grandpa. Why was he the only one singled out? 

After placing his bag in the corner where it usually sat and removing his shoes, he quickly returned downstairs to bask in the rare opportunity of Carla actually being home. Even if they sat in awkward silence, Eren wanted to take this opportunity. Who knows when his mother would be able to cook him dinner again.  He stepped down the steps, a waft of delicious flavors hit his nose full blast, causing drool to actively fight its way out of his mouth.

"Eren! Dinner is- Oh you're already here."

Eren gladly took a seat at the empty table, eagerly awaiting the stew his mother had prepared. As she poured the broth into a bowl to serve to Eren, she looked over her shoulder at the teen. "So, you wanna tell me why my son was in detention today?" Her voice didn't sound angry, but it surely wasn't happy either. 

"How did you know I was in detention?" He raised an eyebrow. Carla sauntered over, placing a steaming bowl of beef and veggie stew in front of the brunette. 

"Because you're always in detention, sweetheart. Though, I wasn't expecting a phone call from the school for a couple of weeks." She sat across from him, her own bowl situated in front of her.

Eren placed his chin in his hand while his other hand absentmindedly stirred the food, waiting for it to cool. A loud 'huff' escaped his mouth as he glared down at his meal. "If the school called you then you should already know."

"Yes, but I'd like to hear it from your perspective as well." She blew on her spoon to cool it down, taking a bite. Eren couldn't quite understand his mother. No matter what he told her, the result was going to be the same. He could lie and say that he attacked someone completely unprovoked and out of boredom. There would be no punishment or slap on the wrist. He could inform her of the truth, say he was being bullied. No words of wisdom would be thrown his way, no motherly compliments to help him through the day.

So, much to Carla's annoyance, Eren remained in the awkward state of silence he anticipated and quietly ate his food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the brief introduction of Levi. Tell me what you guys think! Don't forget to leave a kudos if you want to see more!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you guys think! Constructive criticism welcomed! Also, we get to meet Levi next chapter, I swear!


End file.
